Sunday, June 07, 2009

By slowing down and reflecting, you can function better, says Michael Carroll, author of "Awake at Work" and "The Mindful Leader."

Carroll was the speaker a Berkshire Entrepreneurs Network forum at the Unitarian Church last month on "How Mindful Mediation Can Help Us Build Successful, Healthy Careers" and how to bring Buddhism into business as a "Mindful Leader."...

Mindful Leadership emphasizes truthfulness and clarity of being; being honest about our relationship with work and why are we doing it; working to fully engage our minds; being comfortable with ourselves and completely who we are while in touch with the world; rising above toxic work environments by treating others with respect and helping to find a level of health and well-being for others; and developing an ease of being where you are comfortable simply to be here, not always striving to be somewhere else.

Meditation is an important path towards being a Mindful Leader and achieving successful, healthy careers, Carroll told the several dozen participants during the hourlong talk.

For the last 15 minutes of the session, he took the members of the audience through a meditation exercise that can easily be done sitting anywhere, with a simple posture with your eyes open so that "you can be completely engaged." Carroll said it is important in teaching to develop a mind that is fully awake. He reminded the audience that he didn't have "the" answer, but suggested that through Mindful Leadership, an individual finds mindfulness in their self and extends — not inflicts — it to others.

You're not going to get there from there, at least not in 1 hour or so. Seriously, it's quite a difficult discipline to train one's mind and understand what Peter Drucker was saying.

Sometimes you'll find from his writings that Drucker's had insights that you wouldn't get from a meditation teacher.

Of course you have to bring your practice to work.

It's just you're hardly likely to get to career Nirvana from an hour long talk.